MOTION: C.T. LIN/A. DOEDERLEIN MOVED TO ADOPT THE AGENDA. THE MOTION
CARRIED.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

A. Electronic Approval of Minutes

The minutes of April 1, 2004 were electronically approved.

REPORTS

APASC - K. Millis

On behalf of the APASC Committee, K. Millis moved that the UCC receive
the April 7, 2004 minutes. The motion carried.

K. Millis said that he didn’t attend the meeting but could report on
it. One item was the failing all of classes policy. He said that students failing
all of the courses for which they are registered for a single term, including
summer session, will also become candidates for academic dismissal from the
university. He said the dean (or the dean’s delegate) may elect to retain
on academic probation some students who are candidates for this. He said they
approved catalog language that the dean (or the dean’s delegate) may elect
to authorize good standing for those students whose cumulative grade point average
remains above a 2.00. K Millis said they have also been looking at limited retention
programs and clarifying the language in the catalog (see attachment). He said
the proposed catalog language regarding NR’s is revised. He said it is
felt that if an instructor does not submit a grade, it is an instructor issue
and not a student problem, and the student should not be penalized for the failure
of the faculty member to submit a grade. He said a student who wants credit
in a course for which an NR has been recorded may seek resolution from the chair
of the department in which the course was offered. E. Seaver said that in the
past if an NR was not resolved within a six week period the student was assigned
an F. He said that now it will revert to a permanent NR. K. Millis said they
talked about a change in the grading system. He said that APASC would like for
the UCC to seek feedback from students and for UCC to develop a mechanism to
query students about a possible change. E. Seaver said to place it on the September
2, 2004 agenda. He asked how are we going to get the student input.

K. Van Mol said that the format for catalog revisions is that the deleted sentences
are crossed out and the new sentences are highlighted. The APASC minutes do
not follow that format. She suggested the APASC minutes make it clearer what
is actually being revised. E. Seaver said that the handout that was distributed
and approved yesterday by APASC is a proposed revision for the undergraduate
catalog of wording which relates to retention. What you see shaded in the gray
is what was approved by APASC yesterday. K. Van Mol said that also what you
see on the top of the page where we are creating an entire new section to the
catalog. E. Seaver said to look for it on page 26 of the 2003-2004 Undergraduate
Catalog. He said this was done by APASC at the direction of UCC. The proposed
change will be placed in two different parts of the catalog, under Limited Admissions
and Limited Retention Requirements, and Other Graduation Requirements. K. Van
Mol said that the wording addresses two different issues. She said that this
is the first step to get wording into the catalog.

Motion to approve the language for the two sections in the Undergraduate Catalog.
The motion passed unanimously.

GEC - D. Rusin, E. Wilkins

On behalf of the GEC Committee, D. Rusin moved that the UCC receive
the March 25, 2004 minutes. The motion carried.

It was reported that the committee has been going through the remaining resubmissions
and the new submissions for the Gen. Ed. Programs. The committee has been effective
in approving these courses and in some cases we had to return them to the departments
for more information particularly about assessment. In recent months we have
discussed when courses will come up review, and the possibility of have this
tied to the departments’ program reviews. The new schedule will be decided
in the fall. Josephine Umoren will be the chair of the GEC committee. E. Seaver
clarified a question by J. Stewart regarding International Programs. Deb Pierce
has been looking at the General Education curriculum to see how much of an international
flavor there is to that, and he suggested that she come and talk to the General
Education Committee about addressing the international aspect of the curriculum.

L. Townsend asked about wording on page 3 of the GEC 3/25/04 meeting minutes
that the state is now requiring every program to tell how their assessment is
looking every year. E. Seaver said that is not part of General Education; all
programs will be required to submit an annual assessment report to the Assessment
office. He said that probably came up when Craig Barnard talked about the plan
to gather data from programs on a yearly basis without the results of there
assessment. The General Education Committee is not requiring yearly reports.

N. Osorio said regarding the University Assessment Panel that every year the
department has to show what kind of assessment they are developing. He said
each department has to give a survey summary of what kind of data they used.
E. Seaver suggested that this is coming out of NCA and IBHE.

K. Van Mol brought up that in March 25, 2004 minutes page two item C. IDSP
200, 211,219 that there was no motion made regarding the outcome , although
from the last sentence she assumed it was returned to the Center for Black Studies.
Gip Seaver aid that he didn’t believe a motion was needed since it was
discussion held with the Center for Black Studies. K. Van Mol said that she
brought it up because the CUC serves as the curricular body for IDSP courses
for the Center for Black Studies because they don’t have a college curriculum
committee. She said she would just note that approximately two and half years
ago the Center for Black Studies submitted the resubmissions of these courses
and the CUC raised questions about those resubmissions at that time. Now two
and half years later this is the first feedback that the CUC received. She requested
that either the GEC or the Vice Provost report in the fall what is happening
with these courses. D. Rusin said that in the last couple of years the GEC has
made a lot of progress in cleaning up the backlog. He said they do keep a checklist
of courses. He said the discussion about the drag and delay is being tossed
in the mix of the rescheduling of which courses are going to be reviewed in
which year, but he though the GEC has heard the UCC’s complaints and is
trying to do better. K. Van Mol agreed with D. Rusin that the GEC is doing better.
Gip Seaver said that the GEC is not the only factor in delay of getting these
issues resolved; departments certainly can take their share of the blame.

Correction on page 3 of the GEC March 25, 2004 committee minutes under D. Review
Schedule the word “loose” should read “lose.”

Honors Committee – E. Seaver

On behalf of the Honors Committee and in the absence of L. Rigg, N.
Osorio moved that the UCC receive the April 2, 2004 minutes. The motion carried.

E. Seaver reported the April 23 Honors Committee meeting was canceled. He said
they continue to work within three subcommittees looking at the development
of an honors college, curricular issues and also student involvement. He said
they need to gather data within those three particular areas.

CIUE – E. Seaver

On behalf of the CIUE and in the absence of L. Derscheid, Earl Seaver
moved that the UCC receive the March 22, 2004 minutes. The motion carried.

L. Derscheid reported on this committee at the last UCC meeting.

CUAE - C.T. Lin

On behalf of the CUAE, C.T. Lin moved that the UCC receive the March
16, 2004 minutes. The motion carried

C.T. Lin reported on that meeting at the last UCC meeting.

On behalf of the CUAE, C.T. Lin moved that the UCC receive the April
13, 2004 minutes. The motion carried.

C.T. Lin said that April 13, 2004 was the last meeting for 2003-2004. He said
that 2007 will be the last installment of the $50,000 Pepsi grant money. He
said the University is looking for ways to replace that money. He said there
were 30 student applications and 24 grants were awarded. He said there were
applicants from every college although the distribution was not equal. He said
the maximum amount each student can receive is $2,500. He said another topic
discussed was agenda items for 2004-2005 with emphasis on student input. K.
Millis was wondering if there is a principle way of getting input. E. Seaver
said that his impression over the years that it is pretty adhoc and that is
why that this particularly relates to the grading change suggestions that we
need to think about a number of different mechanisms to hear from a number of
different audiences. He said we can talk to the SA but that represents a certain
group. He said we can go to the residence halls and that represents another
group and the commuter groups the SWANS those types of organizations. He said
that will be part of our challenge for fall, trying to get back to University
Council about the pluses and minuses of changing the grading system and trying
to find a way to contact the law students as well. He said we are very complex
in the make up of our student body and it makes it difficult to get a broad
representative sample of students. C.T. Lin said that he thinks that it is very
important that the students have a voice and be able to express their opinions.

CUC

On behalf of the CUC, L. Townsend moved that the UCC receive the April
8, 2004 minutes. The motion carried.

K. Van Mol gave some background on the April 8, 2004 meeting minutes with a
memo attached from Mary Pritchard, Associate Dean of Health and Human Sciences.
She said there were several courses listed in Mary’s memo and the CUC
noticed that they all had a corequisite that said with a grade of C or better.
She said a corequisite is a course that can either be taken previously or at
the same time. She said if you are taking the course at the same time then it
doesn’t make any sense to have a corequisite of a C or Better. That is
why the CUC sent those back. She said these are changes that the School of Nursing
would really like to see go into effect in the fall semester. She said they
obviously will not appear in the catalog which is just about to come back from
the printer. She said if they are approved by the UCC then they can go into
effect in the fall semester. She said the School of Nursing has agreed that
phrase should come out. She said if the UCC would approve these at this point
then she can report that back to the CUC in the fall.

MOTION: C.T. LIN MOVED TO APPROVE THE SCHOOL OF NURSING COURSES AS
OUTLINED IN THE MEMO 20 APRIL 2004 BY MARY PRITCHARD, ASSOCIATE DEAN OF HEALTH
AND HUMAN SCIENCES, WITH THE PHRASE “WITH A C OR BETTER” DELETED
FROM THE SPECIFIED COURSES. THE MOTION CARRIED.

V. OTHER REPORTS

A. UNIVERSITY ASSESSMENT PANEL ( N. Osorio)

N. Osorio said the last meeting of the year was held on April 16, 2004. He
said they worked on revising the reports that were sent back to the departments
for revisions. E. Seaver asked if they already addressed the every year assessment.
N. Osorio explained that every year the department has to show progress in the
process of assessing by indicating one or two assessment instruments.

OLD BUSINESS

There was no Old Business.

NEW BUSINESS

E. Seaver said Advising was on the agenda just to give this committee the
heads up that in the fall the university is moving to a modification in its
advising system. He said the university will be moving, over this next year,
to what we call a shared advising system, meaning that the responsibility for
advising undergraduate students will be shared by the colleges, departments
and the new advising center. He said the advising center will represent an integration
of advising and career services along with a number of other retention services.
He said that the center will start fall of 2005 and will take responsibility
for advising freshmen and transfer students who are undecided, in other words
they have not declared a college or a major upon entering Northern Illinois
University. He said at the present time, with the exception of Visual and Performing
Arts, a student can be undeclared within a college. He said two things that
will be happening in this next admission cycle is students will have the option,
with the exception of Visual and Performing Arts and they opted not to do that,
of choosing a college to be either undeclared or, in the case of Liberal Arts
and Sciences can be undecided, which will be the terminology that they are using,
or the student has the option to be generally undecided or in other words undecided
without a college or without a major. He said that is the group of students
that he is referring to that the center will be providing the developmental
advising and the integration of career counseling. He said the goal will be
to help those students decide on a major as soon as possible and get them out
to the appropriate colleges and the individual departments. He said as you know
now, because of the model that we have, decisions are made in the colleges with
things like withdrawals, drops, and a number of different kinds of issues. He
said there is also a lot of catalog language that refers to senior major, college
major department. He said we will have to go through and do a number of procedural
changes and a number of catalog changes to be able to accommodate this new system
of advising. He said because of catalog changes and the need to get wording
in place before fall 2005 we will be starting very early in the fall semester
with a number of these as we go through APASC and through Undergraduate Coordinating
Council. He said we talked with APASC a little and started to identify some
additional issues that need to be dealt with. He said we found out that there
are about 19 different sections in the catalog that refer to the major department
or the major college and we need to modify language for students who have not
identified a college or a major yet as to where they go to take care of these
particulars. He said the other thing that this center will do will be to work
with the colleges on the “wandering students” who come to NIU and
think that they are off in some direction, that might be business or elementary
education - you can do the usual list - then at some time, either because of
gateway courses or something else, they decide that they are not going to or
they can’t do that major, and they come back into the system to try to
find a new major. He said this center will work very closely with the colleges
and the departments to help work with those students to get them moving in another
direction that they find will be helpful. He said it allows us to be able to
integrate a number of services that already exist within a central facility
to be able to work with these undecided students.

C.T. Lin asked what percent of students who come are undecided students?

E. Seaver it is hard to say exactly. Admissions would probably say that there
are 600 incoming freshmen students a year that are in that category, but that
is a rough estimate at this time. He said it is hard to say exactly what it
is because we are adding another factor in there. He said the students that
don’t have an idea on their major and are having trouble determining a
college are the ones that are at the highest risk for us to lose. He said our
focus continues to be on retention. He said this is one area we think we can
make an intervention. He said a goal ought to be that when a student comes here
and doesn’t have a decision about a college or major, we ought to be able
to work with the student to get a decision made within that first year. He said
this is a heads up that you will start to see catalog changes, policy changes
that will be coming through APASC.

E. Seaver said that one thing that he did not see on the agenda is the selection
of a new chair for this committee starting in the fall.

A. Doederlein suggested waiting until the first meeting in the fall.

E. Seaver thanked the committee for their time spent on this committee.